


Stop All the Clocks

by TheBigBlackHat



Series: Mind Controlled!Clint Barton AU [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Heavy Angst, Mind Control, Suicidal Thoughts, i need to go write some fluff now, i'm sorry clint, well this is just puppies and rainbows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 21:10:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5758957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBigBlackHat/pseuds/TheBigBlackHat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You have Heart," Loki tells him. Clint knows this all too well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stop All the Clocks

Clint Barton wishes whatever force controls him wanted to do something besides stare at a blank wall all day long. When it's not making him get up to eat and relieve himself twice a day, having him lie down to sleep for precisely 8.2 hours, or take a five minute cold shower, it returns him to the same weathered spot on his bunk and has him sit there, staring at the cool metal wall.

He's surprised he's hasn't gone mad from this.

He lives mostly in memories nowadays; he has spent so much time in them that they become ever more clear and present than his reality with each passing day. The only time he bothers to free himself from their grip is when the guards come to his cell, brusquely check his arm and leg shackles, and drag him out to the visitation room.

Natasha came to visit him once. She sat on the other side of the glass and stared at him with the full force of her intensity, as if trying to see if he was still in there at all. He tried, harder than he had in years, to do something, anything, to let her know, give her some sort of signal. But like always, he couldn't move a single muscle, not of his own will. He felt his mouth curl into an ugly smirk, saw his hand reach for the communicator, and silently begged her not to pick up her own. He watched as the words that came from his mouth turned her face into a mask of hatred and grief. She set the communicator down without a word, rose, and walked away. He knew then and there that it would be the last time he would see her. He wanted to cry, scream, rage, do something. 

His eyes stayed dry and he went willingly back to his cell.

He doesn't know whether to be happy or sad when Phil comes to visit. He comes often, about once a month, sits beside him and works away at a mountain of paperwork as Clint is handcuffed to a chair and forced to scream ugly things.

One day, when it's particularly bad, Phil reaches over and holds his hand for a few minutes. When their skin first brushes, it feels electric; he can't remember the last time someone besides a guard touched him. He sinks into the sensation of Phil's hand, the rough callouses that trace smooth circles, the gentle brush of cool silver, the love and gentleness conveyed in the touch. A sudden burst of emotion, strong as a tidal wave, surges through Clint, and he feels more ready to fight this thing than he ever has before. He summons strength he did not even know he had, throws it in a massive storm at the walls that keep him trapped, and for the briefest of seconds, he is in control. In that tiny moment, he grips Phil's hand in return, the only thing he can do, and prays Phil will understand. But Phil, believing Clint means to break his hand, pulls away, and Clint is thrown, desolate, back into his cage.

The next time Phil moves to hold his hand, Clint cannot feel a thing. He expected as much.

The worst days are when the thing controlling Clint wants to play games, tease Phil with the faintest slivers of hope. It makes Clint sit ramrod straight and stare at the glass in front of him, mouth nonsense syllables, and act like he is fighting some great monster. 

Clint can see Phil in the corner of his eye. He's leaning forward and wearing a painfully hopeful expression. His hand moves without his notice to worry his wedding ring. "Clint," he says. "Please." Clint's heart breaks a little more every time he hears those words.

He will never escape this cage, and he knows it. There have been times when he was close, like the first time Phil held his hand, or when Loki tried to force the magic out, times when it seemed like all it would take was the slightest hit to the head to knock the thing controlling him out of there for good. He wishes that he hadn't been so fast that day on the Helicarrier, that Natasha could've been able to slam his head against the pipe railing like she intended. Maybe that would've done the trick, he thinks.

He wishes, even more, that she had killed him instead of capturing him, had not left him to sit down here in a dank cell for years and years.

"You have heart." Those are the words that haunt him more than anything else. He knows he has heart, knows it every time he thinks about Phil or Natasha or any of the others. Even when he can't feel anything else, he can still feel his heart aching somewhere deep inside. The thing controlling him always permits that much. It will never let him forget how much heart he has, forget that he has a chance to beat it, even though he knows he never will.

He sits and stares at a metal wall, feeling in every second just how much heart he has, for over 20 years before a young man comes into his cell one day and slits his throat. 

Clint wishes he could tell him thank you.


End file.
